Thursday, May 30, 2013

On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity
for you to read about racial justice & Christianity from other perspectives, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...Weekly Round Up:

I’ve talked with many privileged people who, after months of intentional “listening”, are frustrated that oppressed people rarely “speak their minds” to privileged people. One of my educated white friends who’s been living among and building solidarity with young, urban Latinas for over a year recently complained, “I’m listening, but no one’s talking.” From my friend’s perspective, the young women don’t share openly about their experiences, their fears, their emotions, anything.

Oppressed people often communicate well with the privileged folks around them, but privileged people’s expectations of direct communication can blind them to the indirect communication that’s going on right in front of them. I’ve written about privileged people’s fine-tuned critical-thinking skills. But in order to listen well as a person of privilege, privileged folks must also develop critical-listening skills.

It’s all about the listener
The U.S. is a listener-centric culture*; all communication is centered around and caters to the listener. As such, speakers do everything they can to communicate in a clear, engaging and relevant way so that the listener just has to sit back, relax and soak in the information. Since the speaker is responsible for communicating in a verbal manner, the listener isn’t expected to pay attention to nonverbal behaviors or contextual cues in order to decipher the message.

The speaker is responsible for doing all of the hard work of communicating well and for the most part, the listener gets to chill. How does the Nirvana song go? “Here we are now, entertain us.” Yep, that’s the attitude listeners typically have in listener-centric cultures.

Privileged people who have mastered this active speaking/passive listening pattern of communicating can unintentionally continue to use that pattern when communicating with oppressed people. Here’s what it looks like: when privileged people are the speakers, they often attempt to do the hard work of communicating clearly to the oppressed listener. But when the privileged people are the listeners, they often sit back, relax and expect the oppressed speaker to do the hard work of communicating clearly to them.

The unfortunate and counterproductive result is that when privileged people (who haven’t considered the effects of their active speaking/passive listening style) attempt to listen well, they end up playing the passive role of listeners in a listener-centric communication style that centers on and caters to the needs of the privileged person. In the end, it’s all about the privileged people.

Listening well as a person of privilege means it can’t be all about you, the listener
As people of power who have not been systematically silenced, privileged folks are accustomed to openly speaking their minds; if they have something important to say, they typically say it. So when privileged people show up to intentionally listen to oppressed folks, it’s easy for privileged people to expect oppressed folks to start sharing openly ASAP, preferably in a clear, verbal manner that is easy for the privileged person to understand. But it seldom works that way.

One reason oppressed people may not raise their voice is because they’re coping with the effects of years of being silenced and ignored by privileged people. When you’ve tried to speak up in the past to no avail, you become less interested in speaking up.

Another reason is that due to a variety of societal injustices, oppressed people may not have had opportunities to “speak up” over the years and may not have developed the self-efficacy and communication skills to feel comfortable speaking up now, especially in a listener-centric culture that puts so much pressure on the speaker to communicate clearly and eloquently to the listener. When you’re rarely given the mic, your emcee skills tend to get rusty.

Consequently, while some oppressed folks speak up in a “direct” manner that’s easy for privileged people to understand, many don’t. But that doesn’t mean they’re not talking to you in profound and relational ways! I’ve found that a lot of my communication with oppressed people in my neighborhood occurs in the form of nonverbal behaviors and contextual cues. My neighborhood friends speak loudly, clearly and wisely in this manner, but it’s easy for me to miss their thoughts if I’m not willing to communicate on their terms, in the medium of communication that makes sense in their cultural context. If privileged people want to listen well, they must think outside of the cultural box and adopt a different communication approach – one that is all about the speaker.

Making it all about the speaker
Consistent with the posture of humility and self-sacrificial love that I described in Part 1 of this series, I’d like to suggest a speaker-centric approach** to crosscultural communication between privileged and oppressed folks. In this approach, the listener does the hard work of understanding the speaker, gleaning everything he/she can from verbal communication as well as contextual cues and nonverbal behaviors.

In order to do this, the listener must become a student of the speaker’s culture, taking the time to learn the elements of the culture that help him/her interpret emotion, understand inside jokes, and discern hot button issues whether the speaker verbally communicates this information or not. In this speaker-centric approach, the listener is responsible for gathering the supplementary information that might be needed in order to understand the speaker.

Here are some suggestions for privileged folks who want to adopt this voracious style of listening:

1.Try not to underestimate the communicative power of nonverbal behavior. For example, if one of my neighbors hosts a family birthday party and invites me to it, whether I talk much with my neighbor or not at the party, I pay close attention to her behavior at the party. I try to think of the invitation to the party as an invitation to a conversation and my neighbor’s nonverbal behavior as words. When I do that, I learn more about my neighbors values, expectations for her children, even some of her scars than I would have if I’d had a one-on-one conversation with her. By inviting me to the party – into her inner circle of friends and family – she is speaking to me. I just have to participate and pay attention.

2. Seek feedback. When observing and deciphering contextual cues and nonverbal behaviors (like I might do at my neighbor’s party), it helps if privileged folks communicate their observations and ask those around them to confirm or disconfirm them. Indirect communication is tricky, especially if you’re a cultural outsider. It’s best to set the record straight by seeking feedback.

3. Ask clarification questions. Lots of them.

4. Pick up a book (or ten). In order to ask informed questions and better understand contextual cues, it’s

helpful to read books about the speaker’s culture. (This seems obvious but you’d be surprised at how often I meet privileged people who haven’t read anything about an oppressed person’s culture yet expect that person to tutor them in everything they need to know about the person. Not cool.)

5. Ask the speaker if you’re listening well and if he/she feels heard by you and understood by you. Don’t forget to pay attention to nonverbal cues when the speaker is responding to this question!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity for you
to read about racial justice & Christianity from other perspectives, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...Weekly Round Up:

Privileged folks are problem-solving wizards. They can draw from experiences, tools and social

networks that make problem-solving a snap! For example, privileged people have critical thinking skills that were expertly sharpened at expensive liberal arts colleges. They have easy access to information via their Kindles and their iPads and their friends with master’s degrees in random disciplines. They rarely suffer from learned helplessness because they haven’t been systemically and repeatedly told that they’re stupid or angry or only good at sports. They possess high self-efficacy because, among other things, they can easily see themselves in the many successful people in society (e.g., teachers, politicians, pastors, etc.) who share their gender, race and/or class. And they have friends in powerful places.

Earlier this month, I spoke at a church conference in Ohio. After my presentation, an elderly black woman approached me and told me that she had recently purchased a new home and in the process had become the first non-white resident in a housing development of over 100 homes. Apparently, her neighbors were not crazy about the increase in diversity.

With tears rolling down her cheeks, she told me that her white neighbors were actively shunning her at association meetings and harassing her by placing large piles of junk on her lawn. I looked into her eyes and could see that her spirit was broken and that she felt entirely alone in her predicament. Horrified, I sat with her and listened to her and cried with her and prayed for her and expressed anger on her behalf.

Later, I alerted some of the church staff to her situation. Not surprisingly, they responded with genuine concern for the elderly black woman and vowed to reach out to her. One white, well-educated staff person said, “I’ll call my lawyer friend.” Privileged people know lawyers.

In the two years that I’ve lived in my predominantly black, low income neighborhood in Minneapolis, I’ve seen dozens of teams of privileged folks come in and try to fix a glaring problem without taking the time to build solidarity with the great people in my neighborhood. Typically, within months the good-intentioned privileged folks retreat back to their privileged spaces, leaving behind a devastating trail of benevolent classism and racism.* Last summer, a few kids on my block told me that they don’t trust the white people who come into our neighborhood because they “don’t understand us and they always leave soon anyway.”

If Christian privileged people aren’t careful, their problem-solving heroics can easily dishonor the image of God in oppressed people. Most obviously, this occurs when privileged people bypass the crucial stage of “weep with those who weep” listening. This type of listening requires the privileged people to stand in paradigm-shifting, time-consuming and uncomfortable solidarity with oppressed people. Instead, they go straight to the “Let me solve your problem for you” type of non-listening.

I believe there are several reasons why this happens so often:

1. Solving oppressed people’s problems rids privileged people of their own discomfort. Privileged people have the luxury of remaining oblivious to the everyday challenges of the oppressed. Privileged folks who voluntarily forfeit their ignorance (and its associated bliss) and choose to listen to personal and devastating accounts of oppression may not be prepared for how discomforting it is to be aware of such ugliness.

When you’re used to living life on the clean, paved sidewalk of society, it can be uncomfortable to descend into the muddy ditch of oppression in order to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. In their haste to escape their own discomfort, privileged folks can choose the easy route: to fix the oppressed person’s problem ASAP, thus ridding the privileged person of the discomfort of standing in the ditch or even the awareness that such a ditch exists.

I periodically ask myself, whose discomfort is motivating me to act – my own or the oppressed person’s? Oftentimes, I must admit that my own discomfort with oppressed people’s suffering primarily motivates me to advocate for oppressed people. I feel better when they are no longer suffering and I no longer have to stand with them in their suffering or think about their suffering. When this occurs, their feelings and needs are secondary to my own. And once again the situation revolves around me, the privileged person. Mission not accomplished.

2. Privileged folks often underestimate how much they need solidarity with oppressed folks. Privileged folks who think that only oppressed people need rescuing will never be healthy collaborators. Time spent in solidarity with oppressed folks exposes the truth that privileged folks need oppressed folks as much as they think oppressed folks need them.

Solidarity with the oppressed rescues privileged folks from their myopia, their cultural shortcomings and the ditches of privilege that prevent them from truly experiencing God’s grace.** Solidarity is designed to show both privileged and oppressed folks that they are irrevocably interdependent and that they need each other’s help in climbing out of their respective ditches (see 1 Cor. 12:12-26). Healthy collaborative problem-solving only occurs after this lesson has been learned and lived out.

3. The idolatry of privilege. Many privileged people are so accustomed to relying on their agency, power, and skills to solve problems that temporarily refraining from doing so in order to listen well first seems unfathomable. “If I don’t solve this problem immediately, then who will?” they might ask themselves. So they skip out on the listening part and get right down to the business of problem-solving.

In this scenario, the unspoken assumption is that the privileged person’s agency, power and skills are the key to setting oppressed people free. Privilege is god. As such, there’s no need for God and the resurrection power in the battle against oppression. This approach can lead to hasty problem-solving strategies that fail to surrender to God’s timing, rely on God’s power or involve oppressed people in a collaborative and empowering way.

So…

Seek solidarity first. Seek to experience life from the perspective of the oppressed. Seek to rejoice when oppressed people rejoice and weep when oppressed people weep. Seek to understand the specific ways to honor the image of God in the oppressed people around you. Seek to be influenced by the oppressed folks around you. When you’re ready, you’ll be invited to collaborate with your oppressed brothers and sisters on problem-solving efforts that are powered by Jesus and led by Jesus.

______________________________*Benevolent racism and classism consist of attitudes the individual thinks of as favorable toward a group but that have the effect of supporting traditional, subservient roles for members of oppressed groups.

**The Peter and Cornelius narrative in Acts 10 and 11 is worth pondering in light of this truth.

Friday, May 17, 2013

On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity for you
to read about racial justice & Christianity from other perspectives, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...Weekly Round Up:

I’m doing a short series on listening well as a person of privilege* because I often encounter privileged people who sincerely desire to stand in solidarity with oppressed people but don’t really know how to go about it in an honoring way.

As a result, their well-intentioned attempts to listen well often result in clumsy and oppressive interactions that counter-productively widen the divide between the privileged and oppressed. In order to honor the image of God in oppressed people, we need to think deeply about what it means to listen well as a person of privilege – hence, this series. I hope you’ll join in and share your thoughts.

As someone who identifies with both privileged (highly educated, upwardly-mobile) and oppressed (black, female) groups, I’ve experienced both ends of the privileged-oppressed spectrum. As a result, I’ve played the part of the privileged perpetrator of oppression as well as the oppressed target of oppression. And within the reconciliation context, I’ve often had to ask for grace and I’ve often had to give grace. These thoughts on listening well as a person of privilege are based on my experiences as a privileged person and an oppressed person.

Thought #1: Recognize that the rules are different for you.

One of my buddies recently graduated from Harvard. Like many young college grads, he is quite proud of his alma mater and naturally wants to place a “Harvard” bumper sticker on his car. However, one of our friends pointed out that if he does so, he will risk being perceived as a pompous jerk who flaunts his high end degree in the face of less fortunate drivers.

In response, my friend cried “Foul!” pointing out the double-standard that allows alums of less prestigious schools to proudly display their bumper stickers but disallows Harvard grads from doing the same. I told him that it may not be fair but it’s the small price he pays for the privilege of attending such a prestigious school. I added that if he wants to build solidarity with people who haven’t been granted the same level of privilege, he should probably leave the bumper sticker off his car.

By complaining about the double-standard, My friend made the mistake of thinking that he should be treated just like everyone else in the world, even though his privileged experience was unlike most everyone else’s. He failed to understand that the rules are different for people of privilege who want to engage with the rest of the world.

Despite the fact that privileged people have benefited from an unfair advantage in society, they are often preoccupied with being treated “fairly” in the context of reconciliation work. They believe that they have a right to be heard. They also believe they have the right to a clean slate; they don’t want past injustices (either individual or societal) to negatively affect the current reconciliation work. In addition, they believe that they have a right to be treated graciously; in other words, the oppressed person must refrain from sounding angry when expressing him or herself and must communicate in a way that is comforting to the privileged person.** If any of these “rights” are violated, privileged people often bolt from the reconciliation context.

As persons of power, privileged people (unlike oppressed people) are typically afforded these rights. As such, it’s only natural for them to expect to receive these rights in the context of reconciliation work. But just because it is natural doesn’t make it helpful or right. Indeed, to insist on retaining these rights reveals a misunderstanding of both power dynamics*** and the upside-down reconciliation work of Jesus.

For an interaction between the privileged and the oppressed to serve as a step toward overcoming years of injustice, it must first reverse the unjust and unequal power dynamics that have long fueled divisions between the privileged and the oppressed. After years of inequality, reconciliation often requires more than the establishment of equal status between the two groups. A further step is needed – one that requires that the privileged folks relinquish their high status and adopt a humble position that elevates and honors the oppressed people at great cost to the privileged folks.

In the new power structure, privileged folks are more interested in hearing from oppressed people than in exercising their own “right” to being heard. In the new power structure, privileged folks willingly dive into the messiness of reconciliation work rather than claiming a “right” to a clean slate or protection from anger.

For an excellent example of this self-sacrificial reversal of power, we need look no further than Jesus, who abdicated his “rights” in order to honor the image of God in oppressed people and build a bridge to them.

Philippians 2:5-8
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

What would it look like for you to adopt Jesus’ humble stance in your interactions with the oppressed people in your community? What would it cost you?

Continue to part 2...
____________________________________*In general, you are privileged if you are: white, male, heterosexual, middle-class or higher, educated/upwardly-mobile, able-bodied, and/or physically attractive. (Note: this is not an exhaustive list.) Also, you are privileged if you don’t see that some people in our society are privileged and others are not. Blindness to privilege is privilege.**This short list of “rights” is by no means exhaustive.

Friday, May 10, 2013

On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity for you
to read about racial justice & Christianity from other perspectives, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...Weekly Round Up:

Health care is a huge contributor to wealth disparity. Low income folks are more at risk for health problems, both physical and mental. This vulnerability can also severely decrease capacity to hold a job. Depression, anxiety, exasperation, and learned helplessness can grow unmanageable, all of which further affect employability.

There is no fallback in times of emergency. No wiggle room for illness. The middle class pays for a broken leg by dipping into savings, and it can be a blow. But if you're poor and the paycheck runs out, that's it. Treatable conditions are ignored, and more serious ones fester. Heaven forbid your child is born with a disability, or you have a parent with a chronic illness.

As a country, the health care for the nation's uninsured costs ~$125 billion every year, but with benefit cuts hitting the lower class the hardest, employee health care is difficult to come by. Approximately one in five women go uninsured. In some states, a family of three must make less than $5000 per year to be considered eligible for public health insurance.

Those that qualified for medical assistance while they were unemployed lose that aid once they are hired for even part time employment (with or without benefits). This forces folks to choose between earning an income and maintaining their prescribed medication. Medical fees are charged at a higher rate to uninsured individuals than those negotiated by insurance companies. Without a family doctor, ER expenses rack up. And then the debt collectors start to prowl. (for more: Healthcare Reform)

It also costs time to be poor. A LOT of time. Two hours at the laundromat. Twenty minutes waiting for the bus. Then, the time on the bus: "'I ride the bus to get to work, 'Nicholas says. It takes an hour. 'If I could drive, it would take me 10 minutes.'"

Poverty costs 40 minutes to pay a basic utility bill because of money order lines. It costs four hours in the ER for strep throat instead of seeing a family doctor. And if you try to navigate the bureaucracy of social services systems, you're certain to invest some serious time there.

Lines for food, lines for paperwork, lines for health care, lines for shelters. No sense in rushing. You will always just end up waiting. If time is money, then without money, you're double broke.

So what's the solution for those living in poverty? Don't ever have a family? Don't ever get sick? Don't ever make a mistake? Never have any rest or enjoyment? Be sufficiently miserable in penance for your lot?

In the latest census, 46.2 million people live in poverty in the USA (15% of the population), representing an 18% increase since 2008. The challenges discussed here plunge families into a cycle of poverty. This legacy is passed on to subsequent generations that miss out on the accumulation of generational advantage.

Many of us have worked hard to get where we we are. But rather than working hard to get ahead, some folks' hard work goes to simply surviving. Both groups toil, but we start from different places. The fruits of our labor are not all the same. It is exhausting work to be poor.

Bear in mind, this discussion has focused, on what it means to be poor in the United States, where even our poorest are the 1% to much of the world.

Consider the multitude of verses in the bible about our responsibility to the poor. Do we not believe the parts that say:

"The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern." (Proverbs 29:7)

"If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need." (Deuteronomy 15:7-8)

"The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice." (Ezekiel 22:29)

Begin to form friendships in which you are mutually dependant with someone of a lowering income level than you. Don't just serve at a soup kitchen, sit at the table as well. Don't just pray for the poor, ask them to pray for your salvation as well.

I'm pretty sure my privilege is obscuring some of the costs of being poor, so feel free to add more examples in the comments section.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

On Fridays, BTSF offers links to other discussions about race & Christianity. It's an opportunity for you
to read about racial justice & Christianity from other perspectives, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...Weekly Round Up: